


cut our bodies free

by temerity (forsanethaec)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Ambiguity, Domesticity, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4260333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/temerity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis always tells him they've survived because they've stayed as put as possible. Niall thinks it's because they've stayed together. He doesn't let himself think about what it would be like alone. (a post-apocalypse non-au)</p>
            </blockquote>





	cut our bodies free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [athenasword](https://archiveofourown.org/users/athenasword/gifts).



> title is from "brand new colony" by the postal service, and the ambiguity tag serves as a warning for mostly vague refs to the sad/scary/uncertain things you would reasonably expect in a near-future nuclear winter-y scenario. to that end, this lil ditty owes a great deal to _the road_ by cormac mccarthy, my favorite novel and the source of my post-apocalyptic triumph-of-the-human spirit #aesthetic. hope you like!!!

Niall wakes up to light through the window: a fat golden slice of sunshine across his face and Louis' beside him, eyes still closed. Warmth on his cheek. Niall squints, shields his eyes, normally a vestigial gesture when he looks at the sky. Needed now. The curtains are little more than tatters, giving the place an air of abandonment if you look in from outside, which is more of their function than keeping any light out. Normally there isn't light. There hasn't been light like this in months. 

He sits up slowly, like he might scare it off, stares right into the glare of the sun that's fought its way between the ashen clouds until it hurts and he has to look away. He feels for Louis without moving his eyes from the corner of the window, as close as he can get to still looking into the light. Fingers fumble over sleep-warm skin, and Louis grumbles. 

"What?" His voice muffled into the thin mattress. 

"The sun's out," Niall breathes. He can't stop being cautious. 

He feels Louis come into being beside him, shoulder to shoulder, legs under the same old quilts. They both look for a long time, not saying anything. All still. A bird Niall's almost certainly imagining. Almost normal. Then the light begins to fade. 

When the break in the ash closes, Louis lets out his breath. "Been ages since," he starts, and doesn't say anything else. Niall stares down at his lap. Greying blankets, grey light, everything grey. There were colors there he'd forgotten. The sun's made it through less and less lately, so that every time feels like it might be the last. That time the longest stretch yet. 

Louis finds his hand, then wraps his arms sidelong around Niall's shoulders, strains to kiss his cheek. Rocks him around a bit until they both manage a laugh. 

"Is it morning?" Niall asks. His voice feels more out of use than normal. The sun cast all of this into sharper relief -- the long-abandoned house, the thick dust, the silence. And the noise between the silences: the creaking, warped floorboards as Louis shuffles around in his pack beside them. The dead wind stirring something outside, some papery garbage shuffling down the burned street. The silence again.

"Afternoon," Louis says finally. He never uses actual hours of the day anymore; there's not much point, even though Niall knows he'll keep that watch until its seemingly eternal battery runs out and probably after. They all have them -- or had, anyway, an admittedly really expensive gift from the label on the occasion of their fifth and final album. Everyone but Liam had thought it was, at best, pleasantly stupid at the time. Niall's was on a shelf in his house and he was there too, a year later when the bombs fell partway around the world and the clouds began to gather. He lost it. Lost a lot, but not Louis. And Louis also didn't lose his watch. 

Niall feels like he's only now waking up properly. He looks at Louis, stretches, listening to his joints pop. "What do you want to do?" 

*

They know every time they leave the house that they might not be able to come back, so they check their long-term stores are well hidden and bring essentials on their backs, take care to be sneaky, leaving the place looking completely scavenged, not even worth investigating. It barely is anyway, but it's home. Been that way for a little while, anyway. It seems like whenever they get comfortable something goes wrong.

But in the moment their only worry is the hole in the roof that's been leaking toxic sludge into the few habitable rooms in the house when it rains, making them wake up coughing and colder than normal. They both know it's probably not the biggest reason for the cough -- not with the sky the way it is, the constant gentle snowfall of ash onto their beards and eyelashes, into food, over their footprints outside while they sleep -- but it's one they can control. 

They wend through back gardens on their way to the spot that's become the local scrapyard, people darting in and out like ghosts to take what they need, or standing their ground to barter for what they've brought with them. One thing Niall likes about this town is that they've not had any trouble with locals. It was ages after they wandered in and took up residence before they saw anyone at all, and it seems like people thought they'd just been there all along. It's a close group. Doesn't say much, but they protect their own -- unwanted characters are subject to a swift citizen's arrest and expulsion or worse, and all that. 

It's the woman today. Niall sees Louis bristle as they round the corner to the scrapyard, before he catches sight of her himself. She's in rags like they all are, standing in front of the whole pile beside a rusty tricycle. Two rims completely bare and the other sporting a flat, lifeless strip of rubber, but still maybe better than no wheels at all. 

"Alright?" Niall calls to her. Louis' hand snakes out and grabs his wrist, but Niall shakes his head. 

"She's nice, remember? I got this." 

"Don't do anything stupid," Louis mutters, eyes still on her face. Niall gets it. They may not have had trouble with the locals, but they haven't pushed their luck, either. 

"We're just looking for a bit of sheet metal," he says. They stop a safe distance off from her, hip to hip. "Even wood, if you--"

"Take the bike," she says. 

"We don't really--"

"I don't want the bloody thing around anymore but I don't want to just leave it for free, get me?" she snaps. Niall knows at once that this means she lost a child. 

"Alright," he says. He can literally feel Louis rolling his eyes, and tries to ignore it. The woman's eyes slide to Louis' face and back to Niall's. A good sign.

"We'll take it," he says, "but--"

"We will?"

"Shut up, Louis," Niall says, but he's smiling. This is fine, this situation. It's fine. "I don't have much to give you, though."

"Make an offer," she says tightly. She nudges at the bike with her foot but keeps it close. "And then you can take whatever you want from the pile."

Niall assumes that Louis is trying to fight. For every time Louis tells Niall not to be stupid, there are three more times where he's trying to fight. And he knows they could get past the woman easily if they wanted, but there's no need. "I've something in my pack," he says, and slings it off his shoulder before she can say anything. He's learned to keep control of a situation; sees her flinch, but she doesn't protest or pull a weapon or anything, so they're alright. 

He's got them wrapped in a piece of newspaper, and he hands it over to her. Her hands are dirty and arthritic, trembling. 

"Chives?" she says, shrill. "I get can get these anywhere. What makes you think--"

"They're scallions," he says, smiling. Louis actually makes a noise of disdain behind him. "I know you like to cook, or -- I've seen you looking for things in people's old gardens."

"I -- I've never found scallions," she says. 

"Hard to find, aren't they," he says. "Now… seeing as my mate here's been about ready to run you over and have at that scrap pile since we arrived, and as I'll take that bike off your hands if it's what you want, d'you think we might have a deal?"

She nods, cradling the scallions like they're precious, and they are. It's rare to find food that isn't the same non-perishable garbage they've been scavenging for five years out here in the wastes. Rarer still to have it handed over in exchange for literal trash. 

She runs off without another sound, and Louis steps up beside Niall.

"Well played," he says. "Really, amazing trade, Nialler, what are we gonna do with this bloody trike?"

"We can leave it, I don't care. And you hate scallions. What was I gonna do with those?"

Louis grins. "You're the weirdest person. Don't know how you've survived out here." 

"Been with you," Niall says, easy, instead of all the jokes he could make in return. Louis clings to sarcasm like it's something physical from his old life, but for Niall there's no reason anymore to leave anything unsaid the way he actually wants to say it. 

They end up taking the trike, and a decent-sized piece of corrugated siding that should do it for the roof. Louis tries skating on it at first, clinging to Niall's hips as he tries to ride the trike, but its wheels are too busted to get up enough speed. So Louis sits in his lap, knees over the handlebars, laughing his arse off with the scrap metal clutched in his arms like a giant, view-obstructing baby. They topple over within about five seconds, and one of the bike's wheels falls off, and then they're just lying in a heap of scrap metal of their own in the middle of the blackened street for the whole forsaken world to see, laughing so hard they can't breathe. 

It's stupid, doing things like that. It's what gets people robbed or worse. But all that happens this time is Niall notices when they get home that he's cut his knee, the good one, bleeding through the already ratty knee of his jeans and down the front of his shin. 

"Where've you left the first aid kit?" Louis snaps, back to grumpy business again. 

"It's fine, Louis."

"It's not fine, it could get infected." 

Niall can tell he's scared. He's always scared, on edge, and Niall gets that instinct. He's thankful not to be alone every time he wakes up, thankful that he got to keep even one person, and that he was lucky enough it was Louis. But he's not quite scared the way Louis is. Figures they're on borrowed time anyway, and whatever happens happens, and if one of them goes the other's right behind. And anyway he's got Louis to protect him. 

Which Louis does, gratuitously, sitting Niall down forcefully on the edge of their mattress and lighting a couple of stumpy, desiccated candles even though it's getting dark and they really shouldn't have lights on, going over his knee with the cleanest bit of cloth he can find and a tiny bit of antiseptic from their one precious bottle while Niall hisses at the sting of it. 

"Are you gonna kiss it better, too?" he asks when it's finished. Louis is still holding his knee between his palms, examining his handiwork. No blood showing on the makeshift bandage. He looks up. 

"Give me a moment," he says, trying for indignant, but he's already grinning. He bends down and kisses Niall's knee against the bandage, then the scrubbed-cleaned skin above it. Niall watches, heart pleasantly warm in his chest. Louis looks up at him, eyes as wicked as ever, and then he blows the candles out and starts undoing Niall's flies in the low grey dark. 

*

It's been years since they saw anyone they knew. It's not like there's a guarantee that everyone's dead if they're not around them, but each goodbye was still hard -- the ones that happened purposefully, the ones that didn't. Feels like a death, knowing the only way they'd ever be able to communicate would be finding each other face-to-face again. Harry and Liam and Zayn, and Louis and Niall, they'd all found each other at different times in the wake of it, and then after a while they'd had to go. Harry with his roving band of whoever, with his sister, with Grimmy. Niall had this idea they were in America, though how they'd have gotten there he wasn't sure. Liam and Sophia and their families had fled to Australia on one of the last flights out. And Zayn was in London somewhere last they knew, probably closest of any of them, but with no means of communication he might as well be on the moon. 

Niall spends a lot of time thinking about everybody, about his friends. His Da back in Ireland, his mum there with Greg and Denise too. Wonders at the dead world still being big enough that he hasn't just found them without trying by now. But there's no real way to try -- aimless wandering, the kind that gets people killed. Louis always tells him they've survived because they've stayed as put as possible. Niall thinks it's because they've stayed together. He doesn't let himself think about what it would be like alone.

*

"Beer on draft," Niall says. "Go."

Louis groans. "And, like, being able to go get any snacks you want when you're plastered."

"Yeah," Niall sighs. "Alright. Golf."

"You always say golf."

"'Cause I always miss it."

They're on their backs on top of the house, waiting for the lack of sunset. Ate the only kind of wild mushrooms that survived and that Niall knows are safe -- from the same garden hidey-hole as his scallions -- and the rest of their dinner out of cans, earlier, then fixed the roof and never came down. 

"Your turn," Niall says, nudging Louis' foot with his own.

"FIFA."

"That's boring."

"You love FIFA," Louis squawks indignantly. Never past tense. 

"Yeah, but you could've said, like, playing football in real life or something."

"I still can play football in real life. We played, like, last week."

"Fine. Football on a field. With grass. And a ball that's not mostly a giant piece of charcoal."

"Well, I miss that too." 

Niall snorts. "Right then. PGA Tour. The Xbox one, with Rors."

A pang with the name, but Louis' genuine laugh makes it easier to swallow. "Oh, you think you're funny." 

Niall nestles closer to him. Up here with the light going he can almost imagine the colors back there, behind the ash. Imagine a slice of pink through the grey like the sun the other morning. Imagine the first stars. And for the first time in a while, he feels a phantom longing for his guitar: the tingle in his fingers, calloused for other reasons now. Survival reasons. Shakes it off.

"I mean," Louis says softly after a while. "I miss my sisters."

Niall looks at him. They never actually say it, not when they're playing this game. The big things -- music, friends, family. Breathable air. 

"I think," Louis says. His voice is tight. "I think it might be Lottie's birthday today." 

"Oh." Louis has been counting days. Niall can't even remember when he stopped doing that. "Lou," he murmurs, but there's nothing else worth saying. Louis' family had been on holiday in Spain when everything fell apart. They were stuck there the last time he'd spoken to them. Then nothing, and every attempt to find them stymied and futile. The same for everyone. It's what makes leaving like a death. 

Niall finds Louis' hand, lets him curl into his chest and holds onto him while night comes. He stares over the top of Louis' head at the scorched treetops, just bare branches like singular lightning rods, still reaching skyward. Feels him start to cry and shuts his eyes. 

*

The bit about not thinking about life without Louis, that was a lie, of course. Niall thinks of it constantly. Whenever Louis is out of sight -- in the dark, when he can't feel him breathing. He thinks of it when Louis is right in front of him, laughing, when his thin, chilly little hands are rucking up Niall's threadbare top, when they're breaking down and when they're fine. Because it's never really fine, having your entire world rest on one other person's shoulders. Wondering what you'd literally do with yourself if you lost them. 

But it's better than having no one. That's what Niall thinks about the most. 

*

He's alone when he wakes in the pitch-dark. The fear of it like coming to underwater and trying to draw a breath, choking in his ash-filled lungs as he sits bolt upright. 

"Louis?"

He says it at volume, not shouting or whispering, pushing into the void with sightless eyes. Then a rustling, and the lack of light shifts by the window.

"Sorry," comes Louis' rough voice.

Niall slumps.

"Fuck," he says. 

"Sorry," Louis repeats, closer, the floorboards protesting under his feet. The mattress moves, and Niall thinks he sees the outline of him then, once he's close enough to touch.

"Don't do that," Niall whispers. "What were you doing by the window?"

"Just looking."

"You can't see shit out there, Lou."

"I know." 

Warm body coming nearer, the lift and settling of their tattered bedspreads and then the gentle tug of Louis' fretful fingers in the front of Niall's shirt. Body heat filling the space.

Niall feels for Louis' bony hip, spreads his fingers over it. After a while he says, "You know we can go anytime. Don't need to ask me twice." 

"I know," Louis says again. Niall can see his skin, and his hair smells more familiar than anything else, and then Louis kisses him, warm wet tongue seeking Niall's a contrast to how chapped their lips are. There's no need to close his eyes but Niall does anyway, wraps his arms around Louis' thin body, as thin as Niall's now, as thin as can be. 

The kiss is aimless and Niall is thinking about the first time this happened, when whatever was keeping them from having it finally gave way. _Listen_ , Louis had said, panic flashing in his eyes, crowding Niall against the wall of their old old safehouse, somewhere far from here, in another life. Too early into it for anything to be okay. _Listen, we're all we're ever going to have ever again. Do you get that, Niall? Do you fucking understand that?_

He'd thought Niall was scared because he didn't want Louis, when that couldn't have been further from the truth. Niall had wanted Louis well before the world ended and kept on wanting him after. It was the terror in Louis' voice that scared him. The insecurity of being the only ones left together, for reasons they could and couldn't control. Of not knowing if Louis wished it had been someone else.

And Louis' eyes on his mouth, and how he shook, a desperation like Niall had never seen on him. There'd still been sun some days back then, and too many fires burning outside at night. But at that moment it was raining, and the house they were in had a tin roof and the sound was riotous, only drowned out by Louis' ragged breathing and the rush of blood in Niall's ears just before he surged forward to kiss him.

There were easier ways they could have done it. Niall smiles thinking of it now, into Louis' mouth. Not all the way happy or fearless but better for having each other. _Each the other's world entire._ Louis spreads a hand over Niall's heart, breathes against him.

"I'm alive," Niall murmurs, bemused. "Checking my heartbeat?"

"No," Louis mumbles. He was; it's like a physical tic with him, checking if Niall's still alive, even if he's clearly been so directly adjacent to Louis' person the past five seconds. Louis puts his head on Niall's chest, and Niall can feel the mothwing whisper of his sooty eyelashes as he shuts his eyes. All his senses heightened in the dark and quiet. Only for this. 

Inhale, exhale. The weight of Louis' head rises and falls with Niall's breathing.

"You're like when he puts his head on the dinosaur's belly in Jurassic Park. In the old one."

He feels Louis smile. "We're like dinosaurs, aren't we." 

"Did any of them survive after the asteroid?"

"Dunno," Louis mumbles. "I miss Wikipedia." 

Niall laughs. He pushes his fingers into Louis' hair, and for a moment there's another silence, the memory of rain on a tin roof. Felt wet out earlier, but it hasn't rained in a couple of days. 

"I reckon we'll see," Louis amends after a while. Niall blinks against the darkness.

"What?"

"If anything survived," he says. He sounds half-asleep. "Reckon we're finding out." 

And the rain begins to fall, then, like it heard Niall thinking about it. A rush against the sheet metal they used to patch the hole. Louis doesn't say anything else, and they lie awake together a while longer, breathing beneath the new sound.


End file.
